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Will gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the controls as he took the Spitfire into a shallow dive to try to pick up some extra speed. The German fighter plane he thought he’d shaken had reappeared in the distance and if he could stay out range long enough to make it into the clouds on the horizon, he might make it home. Or at least to an airfield in the right country. He saw that the cloudbank extended an arm to the north, and he changed course to take advantage of the cover. The angle allowed the fighter to close the distance slightly, and Will heard the machine guns. Will cursed his luck and in the same breath prayed for it to hold out just a little longer.
This was supposed to be his last flight, after years of allowing himself to be persuaded to keep flying longer than he probably should have. There had been so many times he’d felt in his bones it was time to hang it up, leave it to the younger men, but every time, DS seemed to know exactly what to say to get him back in the cockpit again. But even DS had to acknowledge he was ready to put the action behind him and had offered him an aerial surveillance instructor position at the RAF training academy, which Will had to admit sounded appealing, particularly at times like these.
Will had remained in DS’s sphere of influence through his return to military service, thanks to his placement as a RAF reconnaissance pilot. DS had been an early advocate of the use of photographic air surveillance in the run up to WWII, and had collected a handful of pilot photographers to spearhead the first fledgling squadron. What intelligence DS might be constructing out of his aerial photography combined with his spy network on the ground, Will could only imagine. But he had been remarkably successful at photographing the disposition of German forces throughout France, which is what he’d just accomplished on his current mission. The demands for confirmation of German troop positions had increased in frequency lately, and Will knew from hushed talk around the airfield that a critical Allied invasion was imminent. It just figured he’d run into trouble on his last mission, on the brink of a major offensive.
Will entered the cloud but just as the world went blank white around him, the machine gun delivered another volley, louder this time, and Will felt the Spitfire stutter with a hit. He fought to maintain his heading, but he was losing altitude and the controls didn’t seem to be responding. With the cloud still surrounding him, he was disoriented and didn’t have too much confidence in his misfiring navigation instruments. He was almost certainly heading for the Channel at this rate, and that left him one option. He secured his parachute and his Mae West life preserver he’d hoped to never use. “I am much too old for this,” he muttered as he forced open the canopy and bailed out.
***
Will came to in a series of false starts. There were unfamiliar voices, faces, smells, that appeared and then faded away again, like they might as well have been dreams. In fact, as Will gained ever longer interludes of lucidity, managing to recognize he was in a hospital bed, he was sure they were dreams, since he recognized one voice among the strangers: Kim.
This dream appearance of Kim was not at all surprising to Will; in fact, he had come to expect it. Whenever Will had a brush with combat, a mission go sideways, that familiar rush of adrenaline, the following night he would dream of Kim. He wasn’t pining for the man, not after all these years. But it was understandable to wonder about him, after all. They’d had something special, but the shine surely would have worn off had they tried to make it last longer than it did. But it was special in a way Will had tried and failed to find with anyone else. The closest he had come was with his plane and his camera.
The photography began as a business investment, a way to supplement his income when the book trade slowed. But soon the portraits and newspaper work became something more to Will. The camera captured the instant before a fleeting emotion or angle of light disappeared forever, and Will found that collecting these moments on film gave him a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of interacting with the subject in a deeply intimate way, even when the subject wasn’t human. Not to mention the concentration demanded by the work in the technical details and processing was absorbing in a way that both grounded him and took him out of himself.
But eventually both the book and photography businesses had slowed to a trickle and Will began to feel the old panic rising again. He had barely come to terms with the inevitability of closing the shop and looking elsewhere for wages when DS slid back into his life, as if he could smell Will’s desperation. But he was recruiting photographers and could offer a better paycheck than Will ever could have found elsewhere. The only catch was that the job came with a commission and ticket to flight school.
That hadn’t been an easy sell by any means. But Will didn’t need DS’s intelligence service to tell him the current cause was entirely different from his first military stint. In fact, he found the call of duty difficult to refuse, not to mention the times Will found himself missing that sense of purpose, the action, the knife’s edge feeling between his eyes, focus as sharp as the Messer’s bite.
And then there was the flying. He couldn’t deny it had always held a kind of appeal. Maisie and Phoebe certainly did enough of it and had even taken him up with them on several trips to the continent before the War. And Will was good at it. He’d long since become comfortable driving cars, but never really cared for it. Operating a plane was nothing like that. It was motion in all three dimensions, unconstrained by roads and traffic, and requiring constant awareness of the environmental conditions, the machine around him, and his own actions, in a way that consumed his attention like nothing else ever had. He still didn’t think he’d ever get used to the moment of lift off, the small miracle of losing contact with the earth. And then the view, the countryside laid out like a quilt and the city shrinking below. And in less time that it would take him to get across London by street, he would be past the Channel and looking down over France. He’d been shocked to see in relief how little distance separated France and England from the air, and was later equally shocked by the view of the occupation spreading from the east across the landscape.
Will had found it surprisingly easy to pack up the trappings of his life when it was time to report. He’d made the bookshop into a comfortable home over the years, and had rarely felt dissatisfied by the small living space. He had friends from the neighborhood, and had gotten close with several people from his photography contacts. One of his closest friends, a journalist and photographer, often brought his teenage daughter on visits, a quiet girl named Mabel who started hanging around the bookshop so much she eventually became a part-time employee without Will knowing quite how it had happened.
Several encounters with Teddy Molyneux had left them both satisfied but never progressed to any kind of relationship beyond friendly intimacy. Not to mention the man’s posh accent and slim, dark-haired appearance never failed to remind Will of Kim.
So after handing over the shop keys to his friend and making his few goodbyes, Will had left London for his second round of military training.
***
Gradually, his flickers of consciousness stretched into breaths and then minutes. He managed to crack his eyes open enough to recognize his surroundings as a hospital. There were white walls and curtains and a small metal bed with white sheets. Will tried to raise his head but it was heavy and throbbing and he fell back on the thin pillow and into sleep once more.
The next time Will surfaced from dreaming, he was aware of hands on his skin, touching his arm and forehead. He startled as he opened his eyes to find a nurse patting his shoulder and easing his head back onto the pillow. "Shhh now," said the nurse, who was young but stern. "Glad to see you've come around finally."
Will relaxed back on the bed. "Where am I? What happened?" He wasn't in pain but he couldn't fill in the blank stretches in his recent memories despite finally being able to grasp his current surroundings.
"You had a nasty crash but we're patching you up, you're on your way to a full recovery. You were found in the Channel, knocked out with a lump on your head from the ejection, no doubt. You've been here in Brighton for almost a month now. You've had a shock from hitting the water and swallowing a bit of it, and some bangs and bruises, but we'll have you back on your feet in good time." The nurse busied herself checking his wounds and vital signs. “Can you just verify your name and unit for me, dear?”
Will could do that. “Darling. Er. Sergeant Pilot Will Darling. 542nd Squadron RAF. I might not be as accurate with the date, if that’s your next question.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, that’s not part of the test. Can you tell me the last thing you do remember?”
Will remembered the gunfire, the white clouds closing around him, and the dizzying loss of his senses as he fell. “I was shot, lost an engine. Woke up here.”
“Poor man,” the nurse sympathized. “That’s enough for now. I know the doctor will want to give you more memory and cognitive checks if you’re up to it, but you seem to have a good idea of who you are and what happened. Can I get you anything else?”
Will thought for a moment. “You say it’s been a month? Have there been any letters or telegrams for me, anything from my unit?”
“I’ll be sure to check. Your unit knows where you are so I shouldn’t wonder there’s something, but the doctor may want to wait before risking any excitement. We can be terribly strict here on the head wound ward, you know.”
“I suppose I couldn’t bribe you to smuggle me a newspaper either, then?” he tried to look mentally sound and wasn’t sure he pulled it off.
“Not worth my job, dear.”
Will grumbled but relented and sipped from the offered water glass.
"Well, is there anything I can read?" Will asked hopefully. "Maybe some light fiction?"
"I see what I can do," the nurse replied and bustled out of the room.
He lay back on the pillow and tried to wrap his sluggish mind around the fact that he had been unconscious for a month. Had he missed the invasion then? He must have, though the nurse hadn’t mentioned it. Surely she would have said something if the Allies had been successful, or were they that tightlipped about news in this hospital? Well, the Allies must have done all right while he was sleeping, or Brighton wouldn’t be as peaceful as this under an advancing German front.
Will tried to remember the crash, but it remained a blur. The flight up to dodging the German fighter was crystal clear, but there was nothing after that. He gazed at the curtained window, where the sun was shining brightly through the white linen. The light outlined the shadow of bars on the window, and Will idly wondered if they were to keep patients in or keep trespassers out. A month past his last memory meant they should be in the midst of the gloomy rain that settled over England and made flying such a chore. Even the weather had been altered while he was out.
The loss of his memories, an entire month of his life, plus his plane and the photos he had almost died to collect, started to sink in all at once and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply before he put too much strain on his damaged brain. His was able to slow his heart rate, but it didn’t help shake the growing sense of wrongness.
Several progressively slower breaths later, he opened his eyes at the sound of the nurse returning. She handed him a weighty book and warned him, "Don't get too engrossed yet; the doctor will be in any minute to speak to you," and left him alone again.
He turned the book over and saw that it was a copy of The Hobbit, a novel he had read several years earlier. The subtitle, "There and Back Again," seemed especially apt under the circumstances. He didn't recognise the cover, though, and saw it was an edition published abroad for overseas distribution. He wondered how the foreign edition had found its way to a British hospital. Could be it was left by an American G.I. he supposed.
Will flipped open the book and his eye caught on a black mark on the flyleaf. He looked closer at the blot of black ink on the upper corner of the otherwise blank page. At an angle, Will could see that the ink was obscuring writing that was faintly visible as indents from the biro. He thought he could just make up the words “Geshenk,” “Liebe,” and “Franz.” How had the hospital gotten a German’s copy of the novel, he wondered.
The door opened and a man about Will's age in a doctor's white coat and carrying a notebook entered his room. "Well good morning, Sergeant Darling," the man said. "I'm Doctor Fleming and I've been taking care of you for a while now. It's good to finally meet you."
"Likewise," Will replied. The doctor had gray hair and a slight accent that Will couldn't place. He seemed to be a civilian doctor, but there was a bit of an air of military bearing about the man as well.
The doctor made small talk as he listened to Will's heart and lungs, and examined Will's scalp, eyes, mouth, and ears. After the physical once-over, he made a few notes and smiled at Will. "You seem to be making an excellent recovery. I'd like to know what you can remember about the events leading up to your injury. Can you recall your flight plan and your mission that day?"
Will could recall, in great detail, what he had been doing on that flight, and he was eager to prove himself mentally ready for discharge. But before he formed his answer, his training kicked in and he held his tongue.
"I can't really talk about that, even to a doctor," he said ruefully. "I can tell you I had porridge that morning before I left, if that helps?"
"Come now, Sergeant, it hardly matters at this point, and I can assure you anything you tell me won't leave this room," the doctor promised.
"I guess I'd need to talk to my commander before disregarding the last orders I got, doctor," Will answered, not liking being pushed on the matter.
The doctor smiled tightly. "Good man, quite right. I doubt the details of your mission are still classified at the level they were a month ago, but I understand. I'll have an intelligence officer come in to debrief you and then get a summary of the state of your memory from him. For now, the mundane details of that day will work."
The doctor went through a series of questions, which Will answered while keeping away from any military details. The doctor took notes on his answers, and something about the man made Will increasingly uncomfortable. As the questioning came to an end, the nurse returned with a tray.
"Well, that's certainly enough for today, I think. It's important you continue to get plenty of rest, and we'll have you speak to that officer tomorrow. You'll be back on your feet before you know it." And with that, the doctor took a syringe from the nurse's tray and stuck it in Will's arm before he could react. "There we go, this will help you get that healing rest. Thank you, nurse." The two of them briskly left the room, and Will felt his eyes getting heavy.
He pushed back the bedding and sat up, his head swimming. He didn't want to be sedated, he wanted to talk to his unit, find out what was going on and what he should do about these interrogations. There was something funny about the doctor and Will intended to find out what before he had to talk to him again. If he could just find a phone.
He struggled to the door and opened it. He was in a hallway with doors lining both sides. He slumped against the wall, his head pounding, fighting to stay upright. He made it to a doorway and rested his weight on the door handle, which didn't turn. He took a few slow, deliberate deep breaths and steeled himself for another few steps. He made it to the next door, a golden brown rectangle of wood in the expanse of whitewashed cinderblocks. As he leaned to rest against it, the unlatched door gave way and Will stumbled onto his hands and knees inside the room. He focused on the gray flecked floor tiles, trying to blink back the encroaching darkness.
He knew he must have given in to unconsciousness when he heard a voice he knew repeating his name.
“Will? Will, oh god,” exclaimed Kim.
***
Will woke up back in his hospital bed, the darkness around him suggesting he’d been out for hours at least. HIs eyes adjusted to the small hints of light from the streetlamp outside, and he noticed there was someone in his room silently moving near the foot of his bed. He was instantly on alert, yesterday’s feeling of wrongness rushing back to him. “Nurse?” he asked warily.
“Oh, Will, thank god, I didn’t know what they’d given you,” came a male voice. The voice he’d heard in his dream. Was he still dreaming then?
“What the hell?” he stuttered.
“Shhh, I know you want answers, but there isn’t time. You’re not in England and this isn’t a hospital. They know you suspect something and that means you’re at risk. We’re getting out of here tonight.”
Kim came to Will's bedside.
"Will, can you walk? I can explain after we're outside the facility."
Will shook his head and slowly put his weight on his feet, feeling nauseous and shaky. "I can stand," he said, half to convince himself. "Not really sure I'm actually awake, if that matters."
Kim huffed in annoyance. "That could be worse, I suppose. I'm going to give you an injection to counteract the sedative. It won't hurt you but it will help you wake up." Will tensed but Kim flicked on a small torch, which sent them both blinking in the circle of light. The sight of Kim's face jolted Will out of his fog. It was the same face that still haunted his dreams, under 20 years of wear. Those dark eyes peered into his, now framed with creases that deepened their expressiveness. His lean face had, in fact, grown more handsome with age, his cheekbones sharpened like sea cliffs carved by time. A mysterious scar marked his cheek and Will felt a stab at the knowledge that Kim had been hurt without Will knowing. For some reason, the sight of Kim's graying temples made Will's heart twist a second time. He'd like to have had the chance to photograph that face, preserve it for himself.
"Will? Will you let me?" Kim asked and Will realized he had been staring mutely for too long.
"Just hold on now," Will said. "I don't want any more drugs or needles. I'm awake. And I need to know what you're doing here if this isn't a hospital, like you said."
Kim sighed. "Very well. I can't say I blame you. But if you lose consciousness while we're moving, I'm going to use this. I can't carry you out of here. As for my presence, I’m here working for DS. The rest I’ll explain on the way."
Will nodded, and Kim turned the torch behind him and opened a canvas duffel. He pulled out a French officer's uniform and handed it to Will. Put this on as quickly as you can, it should fit, more or less. You don’t happen to have learned French, by chance?"
"I can ask for directions and give a few commands, if that helps," Will answered as he pulled the trousers on over his thin hospital issue.
"That's fine," Kim said. "With any luck, we won't need to speak to anyone, and if we do, I'll do the talking."
“Will was still too disoriented to find any flaw in Kim’s logic, and nodded his head to show he was following.
“Where are we going again?” he asked.
“East, outside the facility grounds,” Kim answered briskly. “I have a car stashed in the forest, and if we can make it there, we’ll have a slim chance of making it to the Swiss border. The patrols here are changing shifts now; they’ll be in the office for about ten minutes. Here, let me finish those buttons for you.”
Will held his breath as Kim’s delicate, lined hands worked their way up his chest and neck. Kim paused and then, with a hint of a smile, gently smoothed fabric across Will’s shoulders. It could have been a practical, efficient movement, but something in the lingering touch struck Will as something more than that.
Kim abruptly turned and gathered his things. Will laced the boots and stood. He glanced around at the dark shapes of the room and, on a whim, grabbed the book from the bedside table. He tossed it into Kim’s duffel and hefted the bag over his shoulder. At Kim’s look, he shrugged. “Might get bored on the run,”
“It’s not that; you don’t have to carry my things, Will.”
“It’s my pleasure. You’re the brains of this operation. Lead the way.”
Kim moved silently through the door and down the hall. Will forced himself to slow his breathing to control his racing heart. They would be fine; Kim knew the way. Down a flight of stairs and more right and left turns than Will could keep track of, then up a different flight of stairs, and then Kim was unlocking an exit door. They eased outside, and while there was a glow from lamps on the opposite side of the building, here they were in shadow.
They crept across the clearing and made it to the wood line without incident. There, they were stopped by broad coils of barbed wire stretched across the trees. Kim opened the bag on Will’s shoulder and pulled out a thick mat. He laid it on top of the wire barrier and was able to climb safely over. Will followed and replaced the mat.
Will followed Kim deeper into the woods, trying to match the man’s catlike ability to avoid snapping sticks and crunching leaves. A little moonlight filtered through the trees but it was still dreadfully dark, and it was all Will could do to avoid colliding with a tree or Kim’s back.
Eventually, there was a break in the trees, and Will found that they were now following an overgrown dirt cart track. Relieved, he moved up alongside Kim and glanced over at his profile.
“Is it safe to talk?” he whispered.
“I daresay your voice is quieter than your feet, Will. Though less plausibly attributed to wildlife, I suppose. We can talk here,” Kim answered in a low tone that was not quite a whisper. The soft, intimate voice near his ear stirred memories of a younger Kim murmuring to him in pleasure. He refocused.
“Well, can you start by telling me what we’re both doing in a phony hospital in France?”
“I can try,” Kim answered. “I’ve been doing various jobs for DS since you and I parted ways-” WIll made a sound at that phrasing. “-and in the early stages of the war, he wanted me to go deep undercover. He helped me to get recruited by a Nazi intelligence officer, and I’ve been moving up in the organization ever since. The Germans are actually quite desperate for sympathetic British and American recruits, naturally to act as double agents, but also for operations like this one. An interrogation site convincingly decked out and staffed like a British hospital. I’ve seen other men, pulled unconscious from the battlefield, wake up so relieved to be alive and on British soil that they happily answer any and all questions put to them by the kind doctor. I do my best to sabotage any intelligence before it’s sent up the chain of command, and to report back to DS on anything I learn. Or, I did, at any rate. My cover has come to a premature end as of today.”
Will tried to absorb everything at once. “I knew there was something funny about that doctor,” he said, unable to keep the smugness out of his voice. “But wait, Kim, you can’t do this! You’re throwing away years of work by running out of there now. Let me go and you can get back and save your position. I know the chance to be that close to the enemy’s intelligence office doesn’t come easy. If there’s one thing I could count on from you, it’s that you always put the mission first. You leaving now doesn’t make any sense.”
“Ah,” Kim exhaled. “I’d forgotten how well you know how to shatter me to the core with your casual insights. Yes. I’ve spent a lifetime putting the mission first. And yes. I’m casting aside years of work by disappearing in the night. When they discover we’re missing, they’ll know they’ve been compromised. My employer will no longer have access to the offices I worked with. And yet, it seems to me to make perfect sense.”
Kim stopped walking and turned to Will.
“It is in the fundamental nature of deception work to forfeit the minor battle to preserve the greater illusion that could win the war. Saving oneself, saving others, too often comes at the cost of revealing one's hand. My duty is one that constantly requires such calculations and sacrifices. But you, Will, you are a battle I will not forfeit again. If I lose you this time, it won’t be without a fight.”
Kim stopped talking, a little breathless and looking perhaps a little surprised at what he had just said.
Will looked at him. “Kim… I… what did you mean there?” he stuttered.
“Will, disappearing from your life has been one of my deepest regrets. You deserved to make your own decision about what you wanted. But I was young, and believed I needed to protect everyone around me from myself. I realise it’s too late for all that now, but I wanted you to know. Our time together was something special, and I wish to god I’d handled it differently. When your file turned up on my desk in the hospital, I knew I had to act. I don’t expect anything from you. But if you think I’m going to leave you alone in the woods in enemy territory while I waltz back to my office, then I suppose I have my work cut out for me to improve your opinion of me. Now, that’s enough of that. It’s not much farther to the car.”
And Kim turned and resumed walking into the night.
Will stumbled after him, wanting to tell him– he wasn’t sure what.
Will was still failing to come up with a response when Kim turned off the track around a thicket of bushes. He shone his torch on a car covered with a canvas tarp. Together they uncovered it and stowed the supplies. With Kim behind the wheel, they eased onto the dirt track and slowly bumped along another mile until it ended at an intersection with a larger paved road.
They turned and sped up on the smoother surface. Will didn’t know if he was more nervous they’d be driving too fast and arouse suspicion, or too slow to get away before the guards noticed their absence. But Kim seemed to have no qualms about driving alarmingly fast, so at least driving too slow shouldn’t be a problem.
“We’ll avoid the major highways where the more rigorous checkpoints are,” Kim was saying. His hands were clenched tight on the wheel and Will wondered what the less rigorous checkpoints were like.
“Kim, what you said before,” Will started.
“No, no, I told you I don’t expect anything at all. It’s only what I wish I could have said 20 years ago,” Kim interrupted.
“Alright, well, do you still mean it, though?” Will asked, feeling muddled again.
“I meant everything I said, yes,” Kim said. “You were, and are, worth fighting for, and I should have realized that earlier.”
Will scratched his chin. “I just. I think about that time a lot, too,” he said. “How it felt when we were a team. Like nothing else since. Hard to forget.”
“Indeed. Fortunately, I wouldn’t want to forget it. Despite the pain of regret,” Kim added.
Will furrowed his brow. “You know, I never settled down with anyone. I’d meet someone, like them alright, but just couldn’t see it lasting. I never felt alive like I did with you, Kim. Not until DS got me into an aircraft.”
“An heir replaced by the air,” Kim mused to himself. “But I know what you mean. My world was duller and drabber without you in it. And I don’t believe I did find anything that made me feel as alive as you did, despite throwing myself wholly into my work. There was always the empty house to come home to sooner or later.”
“Sounds lonely,” Will said.
“Yes, well-” Kim stopped mid sentence and hit the brakes. There were lights up ahead.
“We can’t turn around, they’ll have seen us,” Kim said quietly. “Just let me do the talking.”
They pulled slowly up to the checkpoint, a barrier and two soldiers in the road, illuminated by a vehicle’s lights. They spoke German to each other and French to Kim, and Will gathered they were demanding they get out of the car and show their papers.
Kim replied calmly and handed over an envelope to one soldier while the other inspected the car’s compartments. When he reached the boot and found the tarp, mat, and duffel, he had questions for Kim, while the other fired his own rapid questions at Will, waving one of the papers at him.
Here we go again, Will thought. So much for letting Kim do the talking. And here he was without a weapon.
Will took the paper from the guard questioning him, and walked around to where Kim was trying to explain the supplies stashed in the car. Will beckoned the soldier to look, and pointed behind the duffel in the back of the boot. When the guard leaned in to inspect, Will slammed the cover down onto the back of his neck and the guard slid to the ground.
The second guard raised his rifle, shouting in German, and Will spun around, kicking it out of his hands. The weapon skidded across the road, and before either one of them could dive for it, Kim rose, holding the unconscious guard’s rifle directly at the second soldier. “Halt,” he commanded. They both froze, and Kim held the rifle on the German as he and Will dragged the unconscious man off the road into the woods. He had the other guard lie face down on the ground next to him, and then handed the rifle off to Will. Kim pulled a small box from his coat pocket and took out a syringe. He injected something into both men’s thighs, and whispered, “Schlafen.”
“I thought you said that would wake me up?” Will protested.
“That was the other syringe,” Kim said. “Find the other rifle and let’s get out of here. We must be near the border. But there’s still a way to go beyond that.”
They were flying down the road into the night, and Will felt ready to face anything. He felt alive. “We could have taken on one of those fancy highway checkpoints, easy,” he said to Kim.
“I believe you, but I’d rather not put that theory to the test at the moment,” Kim laughed back. Will reached over and put his hand on Kim’s leg, and then froze, knowing he crossed a line but unsure how to undo it. Kim put his own hand over Will’s and then their fingers were interlaced and squeezing each other. Will smiled, and relaxed into the seat, and noticed the first hints of pale sky at the horizon before he fell into sleep.
When Will woke, the car was stopped. The sky was light but cloudy, and his hand was still resting on Kim’s thigh, though Kim had extricated his fingers from Will’s. They were parked on a farm, it seemed, with a large red barn to their right, and a field of wheat to their left.
“Will, wake up. We’re at a safe house in Switzerland. I need to use the radio inside, and you can come or wait here for me.”
“I’ll come in,” Will grumbled, and gave Kim’s leg a little squeeze before removing his hand. Kim smiled. “I promise you’ll get a full night's sleep eventually,” he said apologetically.
.Will rubbed his face. “I’d rather be here than back in that hospital bed.”
He followed Kim to the door and was introduced to Anna, the older woman who answered and waved them inside. Anna led Kim to a desk with a radio hidden in a small closet, then led Will back to the kitchen and soon had him helping her make tea. Kim returned from his task and sat down at the table where Will and Anna had set the tea with fresh bread, cheese, and eggs. The two men ate gratefully, Will realizing he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and Anna beamed at them and spoke with Kim in French while Will focused on his breakfast.
Kim set down his cup and explained to Will, “I’ve inquired about travel back to England as soon as possible. But, as you might imagine, flying over eastern France is especially risky right now. And the regime is looking for us by now, so we don’t have many options. I was told it’s probably best to hunker down in place and wait until an air evacuation can be arranged. I have another contact in the capital, or Anna has invited us to stay here.”
Anna said something to Kim and he sighed.
“And Anna says she has an aeroplane here but no pilot. Which is not helpful because as I explained, we don’t want to be shot down over occupied France.”
“She’s got a plane?” Will exclaimed. “What kind? She’ll let us take it home?”
“Not to keep, but yes,” Kim answered. “But you’re sleep deprived and possibly still drugged, and we are wanted men in at least two countries, Will. Be sensible.”
“I thought you were going to let me make up my own mind about risky choices?” Will smirked. “I’ve flown on less sleep than this. And I’ve evaded hundreds of fighters all over Germany and France. Well, until that last one, anyway. And I know their flight patterns and tactics. If this aircraft can handle the flight, I know I can do it.”
Anna led them to the barn and once inside, Will’s jaw dropped at the gleaming silver craft. His expectations had been fairly low, maybe a mouldering old biplane they’d be lucky to get over the border. Nothing like this. “You have a Dewoitine D.501 fighter in your barn?” he asked incredulously. “Kim, you know what this means? We’ve got the engine power, the fire power, and we won’t stand out in French airspace. This is perfect.”
Kim smiled, and put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “Well, that’s good to hear, since there would have been no stopping you even if she’d been storing a dirigible in here. But I must insist we wait until nightfall. Until then, you’ll sleep.”
Will let himself be torn away from the plane and put to bed, falling into a dreamless sleep.
He woke as the sun was going down, the light dimming outside his window. He stumbled downstairs to find another meal waiting for him on the table. He flipped through the aeroplane operator’s manual on the table as he ate. “I’m going to need some help translating this,” he told Kim.
“That’s funny, I thought the same thing when I read it,” replied Kim. “But I can certainly try.”
“The controls are generally the same,” said Will, “I just need you to read some of the measurements and gauges. It looks like this is a prototype model with two seats instead of the standard single seat, so we’ll both be able to read the display.”
Kim looked nervous. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to languish in the Swiss countryside with me for a while, Will?”
“I suppose if I had to languish in the country, it wouldn’t be so bad with you, but I’ve tried that and it’s no good. Not when we’ve got a machine like this to take us home.”
“Very well,” Kim replied, with a slightly pouty frown. Will wanted to kiss the frown away, hold him and make him believe the flight would be fine, that Will would take care of him. But he pushed away from the table and gathered his things. Duty called.
Anna helped them get the plane started and onto the runway, a bumpy strip of grass between two fields. Will played with the controls until he felt comfortable enough to get it in the air; landing it would be another story. The engine roared, the propeller whirled, and they were speeding down the strip. Will pulled up, felt the wings catch the air, and had that moment of bliss when they broke contact with the earth. He wondered if he would ever feel that again after this.
He looked over at Kim, who had his eyes shut and seemed to be experiencing something that was not bliss. Will turned back to the controls and levelled out their ascent, trying to keep it smooth for Kim. As he peered at the French abbreviations on the dials, he felt Kim’s hand squeeze his thigh. He glanced down and put his fingers through Kim’s and squeezed back.
“Should you have both hands on the wheel?” Kim asked nervously.
“Probably,” Will said and grinned.
Will was flying as high as he dared, hoping to avoid detection from the ground or low-altitude craft. He could tell by the lights below that they were approaching Paris when he noticed the lights following them, below and to the left, slowly gaining on them.
“Kim, I think we might have someone on our tail. Can you operate the machine gun if things get messy?”
Kim flicked on his torch and flipped through the manual. “Alright, here it is. It looks like the cannon fires straight ahead, so you’d need to be positioned behind them. Or wait, I can turn the machine gun here. Good lord, how many guns does this thing have?”
“Be ready– I’ll try to speed up but there are quite a few aircraft faster than this one, and I can’t see what’s back there.”
No sooner had Kim put down the manual and adjusted the controls than machine gun fire broke out behind them. “I don’t think they’re even in range, but we can fix that,” Will said.
He cut a steep 180 degree turn, tipping them sideways. Now the enemy was in view and in range of the D.501’s cannon. Kim fired and the enemy banked hard away from their collision course. Will followed to keep it in his sights. Kim was on the machine gun now, the rapid report deafening but thrilling. The enemy fighter dived and then came up behind them, firing back, and Will had to pull a sudden dive of his own to dodge the rain of bullets. He heard Kim scream next to him, but he really did need both hands on the stick just now. He pulled up and gave Kim a shot at the enemy’s side. Kim took it with the cannon, and one of the wings exploded in shrapnel. The enemy plane spun out of control, spiraling toward the earth. Will saw the parachute leave the plummeting machine before the impact, and thought about his own brush with a deadly crash.
He levelled out and tried to get back on course. He glanced over at Kim, who was breathing hard. “Nice shooting back there,” he said. “You ever consider aviation?”
“Ha,” Kim choked out. “I don’t mind shooting, but the nose dives are a bit much.”
“I don’t do too many of those, myself, unless someone’s trying to kill me,” Will said. “It should be smoother now; there’s usually not too many patrols out at this hour, and we’re nearly to the coast.”
“Smooth sailing, I like the sound of that,” Kim said and put his hand back on Will’s thigh. His touch was like fire through Will’s trousers. He looked at Kim and their eyes met, burning into each other. Kim’s hand moved up Will’s thigh and all the blood seemed to rush to his groin. All the adrenaline from the checkpoint and the dogfight was now crystallizing in his rock hard cock.
“Can I touch you?” Kim asked in a rush. “Can you fly if I…?”
“God, yes,” Will said without regard for whether he could or not. “Not sure I could fly if you don't.”
Kim’s fingers ran over the bulge straining his trouser seams, and then flicked open his buttons and pulled his cock free. Will groaned but managed to keep his eyes open and on the horizon and his hands on the stick.
Kim stroked him slowly, and Will couldn’t help glancing down at those hands working him, and the look on Kim’s face. Kim licked his lips and bent over him, curling into the small space to get his head into Will’s lap. Will cursed as those warm, wet lips enveloped him, and he felt the way Kim’s tongue curled around him, the way he’d relived in his dreams so many nights. Kim dragged his lips and tongue tightly up and down the length of Will’s cock, making hungry, gasping sounds as he worked. Will gritted his teeth and suddenly corrected a dip that nearly choked Kim.
“Sorry,” he gasped. “Trying to keep it even. But damn, Kim.”
Kim responded with increased rhythm, and Will was barely holding on, struggling to keep his hands steady and his legs from kicking out. “Kim, I’m there, I can’t hold back any longer,” he groaned. Kim sank down, fully taking him into his throat, and swallowed as Will felt electricity rush through his body and explode out in waves of heat.
He lost touch with space and time for a moment, but managed to keep from straying off course. When he opened his eyes, they had crossed the Channel and were back over British terra firma. He looked at Kim, who was settling back in his seat, wiping his face and smiling. Will tucked himself back into his clothes.
“So,” Will said, grinning widely.
“So,” replied Kim.
“Here we are again.”
“We do tend to end up here,” Kim laughed.
“I’m afraid I can’t offer you tea this time,” Will said.
“Disgraceful, the lack of amenities in this establishment,” said Kim. “What do you suggest, then?”
“Well, I was thinking we could have a beer? When we’re back on ground. If you’re not too busy, that is.”
“Mmmm. Two blokes having a beer, you say? I can’t think of anything I’d rather do, Will.”